This The Hagglunds BV206 is a tracked vehicle built in Sweden and used by many armed forces including British, American, Canadian, German, French, Norwegian and Swedish.
Development of the BV206 began in 1974 and the BV series (202, 206, 206S) have proved very successful machines, with over 11,000 in service in over 40 countries. As well as the troop carrier other variants of the BV206 include cargo carrier, ambulance, maintenance and repair vehicle, command/radio role and anti-tank platform. BV206's are also used in various civilian roles including both the Artic and Antarctic.
The BV206 consists of two units articulated together to effect steering, the 4-track drive allowing incredible off-road performance. The low ground pressure exerted by the wide tracks of the BV206 (less pressure than a human foot) make the vehicle excellent in snow, sand and swamp conditions. Temperature operating ranges from +46oC to -40oC can be handled (they have great heaters!). The hulls are made of foam-filled fibreglass sandwich which allows the vehicle to float, propulsion in water coming from the tracks.
261743 served with the Swedish Army. The BV206 is very well suited to the boggy sub-artic terrain and deep winter snow in Sweden. The Swedish Army stock of over 1200 BV206's was released for sale and bought by 2 military vehicle dealers in the UK, which is where we bought 261743 from in 2005. Other than that we don't know much of the history and are still trying to track down [no pun intended] more details.